‘True Blood’: Naked Alcide, Evil Bill & Double Sam

This week’s episode of “True Blood” had more power exchanges than a relay race, more falls than a balance beam routine, more gratuitous nudity than all of men’s swimming and gymnastics puff pieces combined. That’s a fancy way of saying that everyone DVR’d this episode because it was on at the same time as the Olympics. So, without further ado, here are the most enticing reasons to press play and watch this utterly insane hour of television.

The Wild Authority Rumpus continues as Bill (Stephen Moyer) , Eric (Alexander Skarsgard), Russell (Denis O’Hare) and the rest of the gang take their Lilith’s blood high back to headquarters. Eric attempts to persuade Nora (Lucy Griffiths) that Godric disapproves of their behavior, She scoffs that he has no use for Godric, though she uses a lot more curse words to express the sentiment. Salome (Valentina Cervi) orders Bill to drink from a woman. He is reluctant because the woman tells him she has a child, which is a classic self-defense technique. He tells Salome that, as a father, he can’t do it. She suggests that if he really loved his children, he would have turned them. He flashes back to 1910 when his dying daughter begged him to turn her into a vampire and he refused, believing immortality to be a curse. So he feeds on the woman, and seems to thoroughly enjoy it. At a Chancellors meeting, he proposes bombing the True Blood factories so vampires will be forced to eat the real deal. Is it a ploy (probably) or has Bill truly gone Sanguinista?

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Sookie Gets the Truth

Jason (Ryan Kwanten) persuades Sookie (Anna Paquin) that her fairy powers are a blessing that will help them track down the vampire who killed their parents. So, with the help of the fairies, she attempts to tap into a power that will allow her to see what happens. Something goes wrong, and she ends up witnessing her parents death through the eyes of the vampire who killed them. She learns that his name was Warlow. Claude does not know who that is, but is confident that Claudine did. It’s totally Roman, so Chris Meloni can return, but it would be way more interesting if Bill or Eric had killed her parents.

Alcide Gets Naked

Alcide prepares for his packmaster challenge by having graphic sec with Rikki the werewolf. The camera lingers on Joe Manganiello’s butt and abs. Ryan Lochte, you may be the best swimmer in the world, but you have a rival in the hot body contest. J.D. throws a wrench into the challenge, demanding that they compete to kill a college student. Alcide forfeits, making him more moral than Eric. he makes a speech about J.D.’s V addiction making him a disgrace to werewolves. But J.D. decides to kill the kid anyway, He and Alcide fight. J.D. improbably wins and is about to kill him with a rock when Martha and the rest of the pack intervene on his behalf, J.D. spares him, but says he needs to find a new pack.

The Obama Mask Gang kidnaps Jessica(Deborah Ann Woll), silvers her, and instructs Hoyt (Jim Parrack)to kill her. (Do you sense that this episode has a bunch of parallels?) Of course, Hoyt can’t do it, though he does demand that Jessica explain why she doesn’t love him anymore. Her answer is that she tried but she just lost her feelings for him, which is the most realistic moment in this episode. He frees her and she knocks out the Hate Group members who comes in to check on them. Hoyt leaves to get the police, only he never makes it to the station. Someone (who we don’t see) points a gun at him as he walks down the road.

Sam Gets A Double

Due to some shifter malfunction, Luna ends up skinwalking into Sam (Sam Trammell) and leaving the hospital with his butt hanging out of his gown. Luna/Sam shows up at the police department at the same time that Real Sam is interrogating the Obama Mask Orderly about his attacks on shifters. He has turned into a cobra to scare him into confessing that he did not act alone. The two Sams come face to face and its pretty funny. The orderly gives up the location of the Hate Group Hacienda, where they find Jessica. Real Sam kisses Luna Sam, causing her to revert back to her normal shape, fairy tale style. Why is her character still on the show?

Lafayette Gets Possessed

Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), having escaped from Jesus’s grandfather, manages to conjure up the spirit of his dead lover and they share a tender moment. When he gets home, Arlene (Carrie Preston) demands that he use his powers to p[rove to Terry that there is no smoke monster. In a return to awesome season 1 Lafayette he refuses because he has plans to take a bath and get stoned. Then he demands 300 dollars in payment for use of his spiritual gifts. He hams it up for a fake seance, but then iit gets real when Ifrit’s spirt takes over his body, The smoke monster demands that either Terry or Patrick must kill the other.It’s parallelism, folks. That, and all the naked people, is why this is not TV, it’s HBO.

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